


The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sadness, diana fowley - Freeform, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26087827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Requested fic - Scully finds an earring in Mulder's couch, circa The Diana Fowley timeline
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 22
Kudos: 94





	The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faby/gifts).



Mulder is in the bathroom and there’s something poking at Scully’s thigh where she sits on the couch. She adjusts her position and flips the page of the report she’s reading. She feels like the princess in The Princess and the Pea. No matter how she shifts, there’s something poking at her leg. Finally, she lifts up and pats the cushion, searching for the source of her annoyance.

“Hear me out,” Mulder says, coming back from the bathroom just as her fingers pinch down onto a thin, sharp object. “What if we don’t actually review these background checks and we just tell Kersh we...what’s wrong?”

Scully stares at the diamond earring in her hand and her stomach turns. Heat floods her veins and makes her palms sweat and her heart race. There’s a hollow sound in her ears. Her eyes gloss over just a little as she looks up and holds the earring out to her partner.

“Whatcha got?” he asks, coming closer. 

She wants to back away, doesn’t want him anywhere near her. Her gut twists. It makes her physically ill to think that she’d just been sitting on the couch where the owner of that earring had also sat. It makes her physically ill to think that Diana Fowley had been in Mulder’s apartment. Almost unconsciously, she sniffs the air, her nose searching for the other agent’s perfume.

“You found it!” Mulder exclaims, plucking the earring from her hand. “We were looking all over for this the other night.”

She wants to cry and hates herself for it. Her stockinged feet slip slightly on Mulder’s floor as she walks over to pick up her shoes. She doesn’t want to feel like this, like some jealous girlfriend who just caught her boyfriend cheating. Mulder doesn’t belong to her, is free to see who he likes, have relationships with other people, but why does it have to be Agent Fowley? Why can’t it be someone she likes or respects or trusts? Why does it have to be with a woman she knows with every fiber of her being is up to no good? And why can’t he see that? Why is he so blind to what’s right in front of him?

“Scully?”

“I have to go,” she mumbles, stumbling a little as she steps into one boot. She can’t look at him. Won’t look at him. If she looks at him, she’ll either cry or scream.

“I thought we were going to order a pizza. What about the rest of the reports?”

“It’s late.”

He looks at his watch. “It’s barely six o’clock.”

“You don’t really want to go over these anyway.”

“No, but-”

“I’ll take them. I’ll do them myself.”

“Well, hang on. Hang on.” He touches her arm as she starts gathering the reports spread across his table. He’s got his phone in his hand and he’s pressing his speed dial. “Let me tell her we found the earring. You found the earring. You get all the credit.”

“Don’t…please...” Her chest starts to burn and it feels hard to breathe. The last thing in the world she wants to do is speak to Agent Fowley. Why would he do this to her?

“Mom? Mom, it’s me. I have good news. Scully found the earring. I don’t know. Scully, where’d you find it?”

She opens her mouth and feels like all the adrenaline that’s been coursing through her body leaves with one swift whoosh and she sinks back onto the couch. “In the cushions,” she manages to answer.

“In the couch cushions,” Mulder repeats. “I know, I know. We both looked. I don’t know, but don’t worry about it. No, I’m not going to mail it. I can drive up in a few weeks. Yes, I’ll bring Scully, if she can make it. I will. I will. Okay, bye.”

She’s shaking when he hangs up the phone and she sits on her hands to hide it. He’s grinning when he hangs up, but his smile fades when he looks at her.

“You just made her day,” he says. “The earrings are a family heirloom.” He hesitates and then sits beside her and puts the back of his hand to her head, very gently. “Are you alright? You look a little flushed.”

She dodges Mulder’s hand and leans back. “I think my blood sugar just dropped, that’s all.”

“You should stay then. We don’t have to get the pizza, I can run across the street to the deli. We’ll skip the reports and watch B-movies on cable.”

Stop being so nice, she wants to tell him. Stop being so nice because it makes it so easy to love you and so hard to hate you. She should be relieved that the earring didn’t belong to Diana Fowley, and she is, but the visceral reaction she had to the idea of it troubles her. She feels like a time bomb just waiting to explode and the sad thing is, it may not have been her earring this time, but it could be next time. She’s almost sure there will be a next time.

“Sure,” she says, feeling weak and too vulnerable to say what’s on her mind, but also too weak and too vulnerable to leave.

Mulder jumps up and grabs his wallet and keys off the table. “Turkey sub, no mayo, no oil, pickles and tomatoes, yeah?”

“That’s right.”

“Be back in a jiff.”

She stares at the ceiling after he leaves, wiping away the tears that gather and leak down the sides of her face, wondering if Agent Fowley has also looked up at the same ceiling or if Mulder knows her sandwich order by heart as well.

The End


End file.
